Microsoft launches feature-complete version of IE8

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Posted on 27 Aug 2008 at 20:18

Microsoft has unveiled the final version, in terms of features, of Internet Explorer 8. Beta 2 is available for download from Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 page.

Wheeling out some of the top Microsoft executives, and key partners in the form of both Digg.com and Ebay, it demoed the new browser at an exclusive briefing in central London.

Browse "In Private"
The big new feature is InPrivate, which comes in two forms.

InPrivate browsing is for when people don't want to leave any traces when they're browsing websites - so no temporary internet files, no form data, no cookies, no browsing history.

Microsoft gave the example of visiting a medical website, though other scenarios spring to mind.

When in "InPrivate" mode, an icon appears in the address bar showing that you're browsing in a semi-anonymous manner.

InPrivate Blocking is slightly different again. This answers the problem, according to Microsoft, of third parties having access to your information without your knowledge.

"These third parties are privy to much of the same information as the website I'm visiting, including my IP address and how often I visit," said Ryan Servatius, Senior Product Manager, Internet Explorer. "IE8 not only lets you see who's part of that conversation, but also block their access."

Visual search
Visual search is another big feature of Internet Explorer 8, although something we first saw implemented in slightly less polished state in IE8 beta 1 - which we previewed here.

Type a search term into the toolbar and it will instantly show the links with an expanded window (so you don't need to leave the browser) along with images if applicable.

"Within IE8 beta 2 we're allowing people to fetch content direct from other sites," explained Servatius.

This is a consistent theme of the new release - the idea of cutting down the time it takes to find the site or item you're looking for by getting rid of unnecessary clicks.

Key to this is the Accelerator (again debuted in beta 1). For example, you can select an address in a web page, right-click and be offered the chance to view a map of that address in a pop-up window rather than heading to a separate page.

As standard these Accelerators are Microsoft-heavy - for example the mapping tool is Live Maps - but Servatius insisted the key to their success is that they're easy to program.

"Anyone who can write XML can write an Accelerator. Why's it important? Because if you count how many steps it is to launch a new window, copy and paste, then it adds up to 9 or 10. Accelerator turns that into two or three."

Performance improvements
Microsoft currently won't be drawn on specific improvemnts in terms of speed or memory leaks, other than to say that when handling JavaScript it can be 400% faster than Internet Explorer 7.

"As a product, we're not optimising for some tricky Sun spider test. We're testing the top 100 sites in the world and seeing how fast IE8 runs those sites," said Servatius.

Referring to new features such as Visual Search, he added: "And remmber that the fastest browser is the browser that doesn't need to open the [destination] page at all."